Obama's myopia on Afghanistan

ARTICLE: In Anbar, U.S.-Allied Tribal Chiefs Feel Deep Sense of Abandonment, By Anthony Shadid, Washington Post, October 3, 2009

We aren't the Brits and never will be, because we don't seek to stay. This means that our patience is naturally limited.

That's the fundamental reality of our foreign policy: we are eager to leave. On that score, we will always compare badly with true imperialists.

Where we truly fail, as I fear Obama will with Afghanistan, is that we view the host-nation dynamic so myopically: we build them up just fast enough to leave but then we're also always unrealistic about who will step in regionally in our wake. We don't contextualize the problem: it's just us and them.

This is why we often speak of America waging the war, but somebody else opportunistically winning the peace.

But it's not that opportunistic: we like to run the war, but we don't like anybody else to run the peace--setting up suboptimal outcomes.

Comments

[Al Alborn]

IF the Taliban really wanted us out of Afghanistan, wouldn’t the best strategy be to “let us win” (for the moment)? If would appear that we have forgotten our own history in the area. I remember when our strategy was to drain the Soviet’s military might by keeping their heads down in Afghanistan (until Congressman Wilson actually decided we should try and win this one). When I see sophisticated new strategies and weaponry introduced onto the battlefield by our enemies, I often wonder if it’s “payback” time.